


A Different Dawn

by mswhich



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Explicit Sexual Content, Gentle Dom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Inappropriate Use of Miracles, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Wingfic, cameo appearance by the Bentley, two idiots in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:34:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22765582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mswhich/pseuds/mswhich
Summary: Post-Apocalypse, Aziraphale has decided it's long past time for him to do some things with his demon that they've denied themselves for millennia. And it's not that Crowley is opposed; he's just well-practiced at being afraid, and it's hard to give up the habit of a lifetime.So Aziraphale is simply going to have to convince him. Quite thoroughly.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 77
Kudos: 592
Collections: Apple-bottom Jorts, Ixnael’s Recommendations





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I watched this series at the end of last summer and immediately dove headlong into the fandom, spending the next several months doing nothing but reading all of the amazing fanfiction out there. This is my modest contribution. I couldn't not write something with these two beautiful idiots. It's a little outside my usual comfort zone, but I hope you find it enjoyable anyway.
> 
> Thanks to @narcissisticspaghetti for doing a fantastic beta read and helping me straighten out some issues. This story would not even be finished without their encouragement.

The drive home from the Ritz is quiet. Crowley, so loose and relaxed at the restaurant, seems to be winding into himself like a tightening spring. Aziraphale glances at him worriedly every few minutes, and each time, Crowley’s snakeskin boot comes down a little harder on the gas pedal, pushing the Bentley’s speedometer just a few notches upward. 

The Bentley is not playing any music at all, for once. Aziraphale wishes it would, just to defuse this strange, upsetting tension. He doesn’t understand it. Things had gone well at the Ritz, he’d thought. They’d nibbled and drunk and laughed their way through five complete courses, including two selections from the dessert tray. They’d been practically giddy with it. After all, they’d survived their respective ordeals, against all odds, and they were free to do… well, anything they wanted, he supposed. 

He smiles to himself. He has a few ideas.

He risks a quick glance at Crowley, whose mouth is pressed into a tight line, jaw clenched, as he glares at the streets of London blurring past. 

“Crowley?”

Aziraphale’s voice breaks the silence like ice cracking on a frozen lake. Crowley actually flinches. 

“Crowley, my dear, is something the matter?”

“‘M’fine.”

Aziraphale frowns. 

“Crowley.”

Crowley makes a visible effort to unclench his jaw and relax. “I’m  _fine_ , angel.”

Well, he clearly is  _not_ , but Aziraphale can let it go until they’re back at the bookshop. Perhaps a bottle of Beaujolais in his back room would help soothe… whatever this was. It really was a mystery; Crowley had seemed to enjoy himself perfectly well over dinner. It was only as they were paying the bill and readying themselves to leave that this black cloud seemed to settle over him. Aziraphale had seen it before — after so long knowing him, there was hardly a mood or expression of Crowley’s that he  _ hadn’t _ seen — but usually only when the demon was dreading some awful job he couldn’t get out of.

They didn’t even  _ have _ jobs anymore, Aziraphale was fairly sure.

“As you like,” Aziraphale says crisply. Crowley shoots him a sidelong look but doesn’t say anything more.

~-~-~-~-~

At the bookshop, Crowley stops the Bentley half on the road and half on the pavement, but Aziraphale chooses to let it go this time. He has his hand on the door latch when Crowley, his voice strained and tight, says, “Guess I’ll be seeing you then, angel.”

Aziraphale freezes. After a moment, he takes his hand off the door latch and turns to Crowley. “What?” he says, unable to manage anything more articulate.

Crowley stares at the dashboard. “I’ve brought you home. So I’ll be going home too. And I’ll be… seeing you. Again, sometime. If you like. I mean, I suppose it’s not  _ mandatory—” _

“Crowley,  _ what _ in the world are you on about?”

Crowley recoils as though Aziraphale has slapped him. “Nothing,” he says, his face tightening. “Nothing at all. Just be on my way then.”

Aziraphale realizes suddenly that somehow, some way, he has made Crowley think that he wants to be alone right now. That he wants to go into his bookshop all by himself and let Crowley drive away, instead of having Crowley come inside with him to share another bottle of wine in the bookshop’s back room, to curl up against him on the couch— 

Well. There is rather a long list of things that Aziraphale has in mind to do with Crowley. None of which involve the demon dropping him off in Soho and going back to his flat.

“Crowley,” he says firmly.

“Lots of things to do, friends to catch up with, I’m sure you’ve the same—”

“ _Crowley. _ ”

Crowley stops mid-sentence, looking at Aziraphale with what the angel knows very well are wounded eyes, despite being hidden behind his bloody sunglasses as per usual.

“Crowley, you are not going anywhere. You are shutting this car off, you are getting out of it, and you are coming into the bookshop with me. As I have been  _ looking forward to _ all day, you  _ ridiculous _ bloody demon.”

Crowley’s eyebrows twitch. Aziraphale stares at him with steel-blue eyes that once watched over the gates of Eden.

“You said—” Crowley begins, then stops.

“I said what, exactly?” Aziraphale asks, feeling entirely justified in sounding a bit short. He has an excellent memory and is reviewing the afternoon’s conversation in detail, sure there was nothing amiss. They’d shared observations about each other’s co-workers (Crowley had done a perfect impersonation of Gabriel, which Aziraphale was very much looking forward to hearing again soon), remarked on the quality of the evening’s dinner (quite nice), and made tentative plans for attending the theater on the upcoming week-end (Crowley suggested The Book of Mormon; Aziraphale wanted Wicked, which they have already seen together six times). And then Aziraphale had said that he was quite looking forward to— 

_ Oh, dear_. 

Crowley’s face is pinched and tight. “You said you were looking forward to the two of us going home.”

_ Ridiculous  _ bloody _ demon. _

Aziraphale feels like shouting. “And you thought I meant  _ separately_? Crowley!”

Crowley is flushed, heat rising in his face. “Well, what was I to think you meant? Other than that the two of us should  _ go home_, considering that’s  _ exactly what you said. _ You’d go off to your bookshop and I’d fuck off to my flat and that would be that! It’s not like you haven’t—” He bites the last sentence back, but Aziraphale knows what he was going to say.

_ It’s not like you haven’t done it before. _

Guilt yawns in Aziraphale’s chest, so deep and vast it threatens to swallow him. Peter only denied Christ three times; how many more than that has Aziraphale denied Crowley? All the times he’s denied being Crowley’s friend, the times he’s denied even  _ knowing _ Crowley. What else should Crowley expect, than to be shooed away as though he meant nothing at all? 

“Crowley,” he says, “I feel I must apologize for—” His voice catches in his throat, just for a moment, as he thinks of all the ways he could end that sentence.

_ For choosing Heaven over you so many times. For sending you away, over and over again. For pretending I didn’t know exactly how you felt, exactly what you want. For leaving scars on your precious heart. _

“...For giving you the wrong impression.”

Crowley’s lips are a tight, thin line. “And what’s the right impression, then?”

Aziraphale sighs and says, “Could we perhaps not do this in the car?” Crowley takes in a breath as though to argue, and Aziraphale quickly interjects, “It’s only that there are some things I think I’d like to say, and I’d rather—can we just go in, please? Please.” 

A tidal wave of feelings is threatening to break through the very tall and very sturdy dam Aziraphale had built up in front of them for centuries, and he’d rather not have that happen in Crowley’s bloody car, thank you very much.

Crowley expels a breath and shrugs. “Yeah, all right, angel.” He shuts off the Bentley. Of course he does. When, Aziraphale thinks with shame, has he ever denied anything the angel has asked of him? And Aziraphale has very much taken advantage of that, he fears.

Crowley threw himself, quite literally, between Aziraphale and the combined forces of Heaven and Hell. Crowley would have left this  _ planet  _ for him, this planet that he loves so much. And when Crowley thought Aziraphale was dead, really dead, he’d despaired. He’d told Aziraphale he’d lost his best friend. 

Aziraphale closes his eyes in misery. Crowley had said,  _ out loud_, in front of God and Heaven and Hell and anyone else who happened to be listening in, that he was  _ best friends with an angel_. 

And Aziraphale, in that stunning moment, had let Crowley think that he hadn’t understood. Because that was what he did, wasn’t it? Pretended to misunderstand, pretended not to hear the question, changed the subject, moved on. Never knew who might be listening. And yet Crowley was always there for him, giving him whatever he needed, providing cover and risking his  _ own _ safety so that Aziraphale wouldn’t have to risk his.

Aziraphale is suddenly very sick and tired of pretending. He thinks he’d rather like to stop. Right now, as a matter of fact. He thinks that it is long past time for him to start giving Crowley things that he—that  _ they both_— very much want.

Aziraphale thinks he might have a very good idea of exactly what Crowley wants. He has spent a not inconsiderable amount of time recently thinking about this.

“Angel?” Crowley says. “You getting out or what?” He’s come around to Aziraphale’s side and opened the door for him. 

“Apologies,” Aziraphale says, climbing out of the Bentley. “I was quite lost in thought for a moment.” He fixes Crowley with a smile, but it must not look quite right, because Crowley frowns a little. “Come on,” Aziraphale says. “Inside.”

He lets them both into the bookshop and closes the door behind them. He feels better once they’re inside. The shades are down, and motes of dust hang in the dim light. The bookshop is quiet, still,  _ intact _ . It feels like home. Aziraphale is quite glad to be here, quite glad to be here  _ with Crowley_. 

He turns to Crowley to tell him so, and stops dead in his tracks. Crowley is bracing himself with stiff arms on Aziraphale’s writing desk, head lowered, trembling.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says with some alarm, “what—”

“‘M all right,” he mutters. 

“Well, you’re clearly not,” Aziraphale says, sensibly. “What is it, my dear?” He goes to Crowley’s side and hovers his hands near his bent-over form for a moment. Touching is still so new to them. Oh, they’ve casually touched over the years—a brush of the wrists here, a steadying hand on the shoulder there. But never more than that. Never anything  _ deliberate_, anything meaningful, not until the bus ride the day before when Crowley slid his fingers into Aziraphale’s and clasped them there for the duration. His fingers were long and elegant, and a little bit cold. Aziraphale had fixed the sensation carefully in his memory, savoring and protecting it in the all too likely event that it was the last time, the only time, it would ever happen. 

“It’s all still here,” Crowley says, voice unsteady. “Not even a little singed.”

Aziraphale breathes a low noise. “Oh, my dear,” he says. “You were in it, weren’t you? When it burned.”

Crowley jerks his head in a nod. “Yeah. It fell on me. A bit.”

“It  _ what_?” Aziraphale realizes with horror that he never asked Crowley exactly what happened when he’d come here on the day of the Apocalypse. He hadn’t realized until this very moment that Crowley had been here as the bookshop was burning, that Crowley had  _ literally walked through fire for him. _

“Bookshop. Upper story burned through, I guess. Fell on m’head.” Crowley stares down at his hands, white-knuckled on the table. “You weren’t anywhere, and you know, I can—I can usually—” He stops, his voice catching. Aziraphale reaches out to touch him but holds back at the last, not wanting to startle Crowley.

Six thousand years, he thinks. Six thousand years and he’d thought he’d known everything there was to know about Crowley. But he doesn’t know how to touch him.

“I can usually  _ feel _ you,” Crowley rasps out, his voice sounding as though it’s being dragged over gravel. “If I try. Sometimes when I don’t try,” he says with a bitter half-laugh. “But I couldn’t, and you weren’t  _ anywhere_, and there was  _fire_ , Aziraphale. All of this—” He lifts one hand and waves vaguely around him. “All of it was burning, and I  _ couldn’t find you._”

“Oh, my dear,” Aziraphale says. His need to touch overcomes his worry, and he rests a gentle hand on Crowley’s back, not missing the little shudder this elicits from Crowley. “I am here now.”

“But you  _ weren’t_,” Crowley says, turning to face Aziraphale. “You weren’t, and—ah, nevermind,” he mutters. He schools his face into something like his usual carefree smirk. “Got a bottle of wine in the back here somewhere?” 

Aziraphale knows how this is supposed to go. They’ll open the wine and they’ll sit and talk while they get a little bit sloshed. They’ll carefully not touch each other, and they’ll carefully avoid any talk that might verge into dangerous subjects. Like friendship, or affection, or all the things Aziraphale has imagined doing to Crowley now that they’re free. Crowley will fall asleep on the couch and Aziraphale will cover him with a blanket and leave him there, and that will be that.

Aziraphale thinks he might want more from this evening. He thinks Crowley might be amenable to the same.

“No,” Aziraphale says. “I mean, yes, but I rather think there’s something else I’d like to do.”

Crowley twitches. “Yeah?” he asks. “What’s that, then? Telly? I can find one of those baking shows—”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, stopping him. He reaches towards Crowley’s face, takes the temple of his sunglasses gently between thumb and forefinger. Crowley goes very, very still.

“May I, my dear?” Aziraphale breathes. 

Crowley has been wearing sunglasses since the Chinese first learned how to put smoked quartz into frames. He’s had various styles and colors over the ensuing centuries, but all of them had two things in common: they shielded his eyes from view, and Aziraphale had never touched any of them. 

Today, he thinks, is full of new beginnings.

Crowley gives a little jerk of his head. “Go on, then,” he says, the faintest tremor in his voice present for one who knows what to listen for. “Know you’ve been wanting to.”

Aziraphale’s mouth turns up at the corner. “You’ve no idea,” he says, and he slides the glasses from Crowley’s nose, folding them up neatly and placing them carefully, delicately on his desk.

Crowley’s eyes shine bright and golden in the dim light of the shop. They are as snake-like as Aziraphale has ever seen them. It reminds Aziraphale of the day they met.

“Angel, what—” Crowley begins, but Aziraphale cuts him off by resting a thumb along his cheekbone. Crowley startles, and Aziraphale can feel a low tremor within him, the seismic rumbling of a far-off earthquake.

“I did not leave you,” Aziraphale says. Crowley’s eyes widen, reflecting the lamplight. “I didn’t, and I haven’t, and I won’t. I never could, you beautiful, ridiculous thing.” 

“I—” Crowley starts, but seems unable to make any more sound. His mouth is open, and he is trembling.

“Oh, come here,” Aziraphale says, and with no further warning, he pulls Crowley into his arms and folds him into a tight, crushing embrace. Crowley makes an extremely undignified squawk, and for the space of a breath, Aziraphale wonders if he has misstepped. But then Crowley relaxes into Aziraphale’s arms. He tentatively wraps his wiry arms around Aziraphale, buries his head in the angel’s neck. Aziraphale feels Crowley’s pulse beating against his own. He breathes in the smoke and sandalwood scent of Crowley’s hair. Crowley’s lean, lithe body molds against Aziraphale’s as though they were crafted perfectly for each other, as though this is exactly what they were made for.

And perhaps it is. Perhaps it is exactly what they were made for. They were both sent to the Garden, after all. Would She have sent them there if they weren’t meant to come together, to learn from each other, to be each other’s partner, their succor and their comfort? God had never told him to stay away from Crowley; the only directives he’d ever received on that account came from Home Office, and recent events proved how trustworthy  _ they  _ were. Aziraphale has never really allowed himself to consider this, but now that he has, it’s as if floodwaters are pounding at the gates of his heart. They’ve spent so much time hiding, and perhaps it was all for  _ nothing_.

Aziraphale realizes that his cheeks are wet. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers into the top of Crowley’s lovely head. 

Crowley turns his head sideways, which brushes his lips against Aziraphale’s neck and sends an exciting little thrill down his spine. When he speaks, the words are hot and damp against Aziraphale’s throat. “For what, angel? This is—this is good. I like this. Don’t be sorry.”

“Oh, I like it very much as well,” Aziraphale hurriedly assures him, stroking his hair, which is just as soft and thick as he’d always imagined it would be. “It’s not that. It’s— “ It is difficult to force the words out. But there are things that Crowley needs to hear, things that Aziraphale must say. 

“At the bandshell, I said I didn’t like you, and Crowley, you have to know, you  _ must _ know it was a lie, and I—”

Crowley snorts, a hot little burst against Aziraphale’s skin. “Course it was, angel,” he says.

“You knew?” 

“Always knew. Every time. I tried not to take it personal. You were terrified, I knew that.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale chokes.

Crowley shrugs gamely. “Always came back, didn’t I?”

Aziraphale feels the floodgates give way, the waters churning and pounding. “You did. You always came back, even when I was horrible to you,” Aziraphale whispers. “Even when I’d given you no hope at all.” He clutches Crowley as though all of Hell’s demons might show up any moment to try to pry him away. “Bravest, best demon.”

Crowley goes bright red from forehead to neck, which is truly delightful and something Aziraphale thinks he will explore much more thoroughly, but right now--

Aziraphale takes Crowley’s head between his hands, holds him quite still, and before the wide-eyed demon can say a word, kisses him.


	2. Chapter 2

Crowley’s mind shorts out completely for a little bit, and when it finally reboots, he becomes aware that he is being kissed very  _ thoroughly _ and  _ effectively _ by a Principality of Heaven. He is making embarrassing little noises in the back of his throat and does not seem to be able to stop. Aziraphale tastes divine, in the biblical sense, making Crowley feel a bit as though he’s kissing a live electric wire. He wonders if he tastes of Hellfire to Aziraphale. If so, the angel does not seem to particularly mind. 

Aziraphale’s soft weight against Crowley makes Crowley take a shuffling step backwards, and then another, and another. Crowley realizes that it is deliberate, that Aziraphale is slowly and inexorably walking him backwards until he’s leaning against one of the bookshop walls. One sturdy, angelic hand is wound through the hair at the nape of his neck and the other one is tracing fingers along his shoulders and back. 

Crowley has never been particularly interested in kissing before. He’s tempted hundreds of humans into kissing each other, and he’s watched it enough times to get the general gist, but he hasn’t done it himself. The thought of doing it with a human is vaguely distasteful, and the only celestial being… well, he’d seemed unavailable. But Aziraphale is licking into Crowley’s mouth and doing very clever and un-angelic things with his tongue, and Crowley  _ is interested_.

_ Aziraphale_, he thinks. He cannot think of anything beyond that. Just  _ Aziraphale_, over and over. His fussy, bossy angel, who has done every Telegraph crossword for the past fifty years, who has worn the same waistcoat since Victoria’s coronation and whose hair always looks a bit as though he’s been caught in a windstorm. Aziraphale, clever bastard who outwitted both Heaven and Hell at the very gates of the Apocalypse. Aziraphale, who has been Crowley’s adversary, dinner companion, and best friend.  _ Aziraphale_. Aziraphale is holding him, touching him,  _ kissing _ him. Aziraphale’s  _ mouth _ is on him.

Crowley’s imagination, impressive by demonic standards, had nonetheless only ever extended to maybe curling up next to the angel on the bookshop couch, maybe interlacing fingers from time to time. His favorite, most extravagant daydream, and the one he’d secretly hoped they might do this evening, involved sitting next to Aziraphale on the couch and watching telly. They’d put on a cooking show (Aziraphale is partial to The Great British Bake-Off) and Crowley would pet Aziraphale’s hair while feeding him sweets and cakes from his fingers. (Crowley will not admit to anyone, including himself, how much time he’s spent considering exactly which bonbons and sweets he would feed to Aziraphale while they watched, nor the amount of time he’s spent imagining the sounds Aziraphale would make as he ate them.)

Aziraphale is exploring his mouth with his tongue, playing with his hair, sliding a hand down his back and cupping his arse, and maybe...maybe tonight he could do more than just pet Aziraphale’s hair, more than just sit pressed against him on the couch. 

_ Don’t get greedy_, he tells himself furiously.  _ This is already so much more than you thought you could have. This is enough. This has to be enough.  _

A cold terror lurks in the depths of Crowley’s mind, threatening to surface, but he ignores it. He’s been so afraid for so long, and he wants just a little while longer to be free of it. Just a few moments more with Aziraphale, that’s all he wants. And they haven’t done anything so serious yet. It’s just kissing, a bit of touching. Just this much is fine. Just this much is enough.

Aziraphale disengages from him just enough to be able to speak. “All right, my dear?” he asks, his breath hot on Crowley’s cheek, his curls brushing against Crowley’s forehead. 

Crowley wishes he could think of a clever response to this, something witty and self-deprecatory, but all he’s got is a breathy, “Yeah, angel. ‘m all right.” 

Aziraphale’s mouth curves into a delighted smile. He is so  _ close  _ to Crowley, and he’s starting to radiate heat and light _.  _ Crowley doesn’t think Aziraphale realizes it, but the angel is leaking divinity, bathing Crowley in his grace, which feels a bit like when you’ve sat in the sun just a bit too long on a bright, summer day. Crowley likes it. He wants to  _ bask  _ in it. 

“You know,” he says, his voice cracking a little, “I’d have been happy with just…”

“Just what, darling?”

_ Darling_. Crowley’s bones go all slithery, and it’s just as well that Aziraphale is holding onto him. “Just you, you great pillock,” he manages. “Just us. Just…. Walks in the park and dinners at the Ritz and watching telly…” He stops, swallows hard. Aziraphale traces gentle fingers over the tattooed sigil at Crowley’s temple. Maybe Aziraphale’s divinity is making Crowley brave, because otherwise he doesn’t understand how he’s capable of saying these humiliating things out loud. 

“Just… even that’s more than I ever thought I could have,” Crowley whispers. 

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, sounding desperately fond. “I intend to give you so much more than that.”

Crowley can manage only a strangled, “unh,” before Aziraphale presses his full weight against him and kisses him again, exploring his mouth precisely and thoroughly. There’s something Crowley knows he needs to say, something he had in mind  _ just _ a moment ago, but it’s hard to think clearly with an armful of angel shoving him against the wall of a bookshop and snogging him to within an inch of his life. Aziraphale is spilling holiness out of himself like a river in spring melt, and Crowley probably shouldn’t be enjoying that, but he can’t help it, it’s  _ Aziraphale_. His senses are suffused with  _ angel, angel, angel_. His cock, half-hard since Aziraphale kissed him, is now stiff and throbbing with need. (Crowley has kept a cock around since the Roman era, first for aesthetic reasons and later simply out of habit. And for the occasional guilty wank after visiting with Aziraphale.)

Aziraphale is touching him everywhere,  _ exploring  _ him, and that alone would have been overwhelming enough. But then...Aziraphale’s drifting fingers find the exact spot between Crowley’s shoulder blades where his wings attach in the metaphysical plane. It’s like a white-hot lightning bolt hits Crowley’s spine. His knees buckle, like a marionette when the strings are cut. Aziraphale catches him, and he ends up leaning against Aziraphale’s chest, face pressed into his neck, trembling. 

“Fuck,” Crowley says in a small voice. He risks a little glance up to Aziraphale’s face.

Aziraphale’s eyes are sharp as a clear summer sky. “My dear,” he breathes, “what was that?” 

Crowley can’t answer. He is being absolutely assaulted with Aziraphale’s divinity, and it’s already verging on being too much for him. He  _ really  _ doesn’t want to talk about his wings right now. 

~-~-~-~-~-~

Crowley does not like his wings. He used to, Before. But he tries not to think about that, about when his wings were pearly white and dusted with gold. They burned in the Fall. Not completely away, like they did for some of the Fallen. But they burned, charred black, an ugly reminder of his loss of divinity. In six thousand years, he’s only had them out twice, once in the Garden before he knew how to hide them away, and once at the airfield when his true form was on display. The thought of Aziraphale, gorgeous, divine Aziraphale, looking at them — the worst part of himself, the ugliest part— makes something twist inside him. It is not to be borne.

His wings burning had been the worst pain he’d ever felt, worse than anything that came before or after, a searing agony that he can still remember if he just closes his eyes. Afterward he’d reached for them with trembling hands, breathed a shaky sigh of relief when he found that they were still there — sensitive, hurting, but there. And then he saw that they were charred by Hellfire, ugly and twisted things. The Fall was still so fresh and raw that he’d been numb, dazed. But when he saw what had been done to his wings — his beautiful wings, given to him with God’s grace and now taken away from him just as Her grace had been — he cried, piteous and broken and alone. As soon as he’d learned how, he’d tucked them away out of sight. He had never brought them out willingly since.

~-~-~-~-~-~

“Dunno,” he lies to Aziraphale. “Just a nervous twitch, I reckon.”

Aziraphale arches an eyebrow, and Crowley inwardly despairs, because that’s Aziraphale’s _ I’m not going to let this go _ look.

“Really?” Aziraphale asks, and dances his fingertips along the spot again. Crowley makes a really embarrassing noise. He can’t help it; Aziraphale’s touch is like liquid fire down his spine, and his wings are trembling, responding to Aziraphale’s grace. He both wants and does not want to bring them out; he’s half out of his mind just from Aziraphale  _ touching _ him. It is too much, far too much for him to cope with. 

“Is that what we’re calling a nervous twitch?” Aziraphale asks, managing to sound half-annoyed and half-fond. Crowley is trying to keep his mind and possibly his corporation from falling to pieces. If he’s lucky, Aziraphale will just assume he’s got a ticklish spot there and will let it go. 

Aziraphale, who has a sharpish look in his eyes and is  _ definitely _ Not Letting This Go, says, “Why don’t you want me to see your wings, my dear?”

Of course Aziraphale knew exactly what he was trying to hide. Of course he did. Crowley only had to go and fall for Heaven’s cleverest bloody angel. And he can’t answer him, he  _ can’t_, because the answer is that his wings will remind Aziraphale that he is a demon, filthy and low. Aziraphale won’t want to touch him after that, and if Aziraphale stops touching him now, he may discorporate and definitely will actually cry.

Aziraphale is still talking. “It’s only that I’d rather like to. If you don’t mind?”

Crowley does mind, he really does. 

“Angel,” he says. “Please.” He hates himself a little for begging, but he is afraid. Crowley is very close to getting something that he has been afraid to even admit that he wants for a very long time. And he is very afraid that he is going to somehow ruin it.

Aziraphale hovers his fingers over the metaphysically complicated area where Crowley’s wings both are and are not. He is not touching, not quite, but Crowley can feel the heat of him, can feel the divinity sparking against him like an electric hum. It’s  _ pulling _ at him, making him want to give in. He knows it would feel good; that’s the worst of it. It would feel  _ so good _ to just release his wings and let Aziraphale pet at them like he so obviously wants to. 

And  _ that _ thought brings Crowley’s attention back to his cock, pressing uncomfortably against the fabric of his stupid skinny jeans. 

“You’re very sure?” Aziraphale says, letting his fingers drift idly around Crowley’s shoulder blades, just barely skimming the surface. Crowley’s teeth click together hard.

_ Bastard angel. _

“Yessss,” Crowley hisses, feeling frantic. “I’m  _ really quite sure_.”

Aziraphale relents, thank Everyone. “It’s all right, darling,” he says. “I imagine there are other things we can do.” He presses his lips against Crowley’s neck, sucking a gentle kiss into the tender skin there. 

_ Other things.  _ Crowley wants this, Satan knows he wants this, but he is having trouble believing it’s actually happening. He feels a bit as though he’s having an extremely vivid dream. (He has, in fact, had similar dreams in the past, although with the notable difference that none of them involved Aziraphale wanting to mess about with his bloody wings.)

“Angel,” he says, “are you sure— I mean, you’ve never said before—” Crowley is trying, inarticulately, to express  _ you’ve never shown a lick of interest in sexual congress in your entire millennia-long life, so are you sure, are you  _ really _ sure, you want to do it with me? _

Aziraphale is well-versed in Crowley-speak. He strokes a thumb against Crowley’s cheekbone in a possessive way that makes Crowley want to break out in scales. “My dear,” he says, “I’ve been thinking unholy thoughts about you for centuries. You are a  _ very _ good tempter, after all.”

The idea of Aziraphale thinking  _ unholy thoughts _ about him derails Crowley completely. He is suddenly reminded of the time he’d arrived at the shop to find Aziraphale in the middle of moving some crates of books around. It had been a hot day, and Aziraphale had removed his tie and waistcoat, sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His shirt had the top two buttons undone, revealing a triangle of pink skin and blond fuzz. When Aziraphale was finished with the crates, he’d brought out the wineglasses, and they’d spent the rest of the day as they usually did — with the exception that Aziraphale didn’t bother rolling his sleeves back down or rebuttoning his shirt. Crowley had neglected to breathe for the entire afternoon. 

The memory was treasured and well-worn, and now Crowley wonders. After he’d left that evening, did Aziraphale push his sleeves up a bit more? Did he undo his trousers, slide one of those strong, angelic hands down the curve of his belly, into his pants, around his— Crowley swallows hard. His imagination can only stretch so far, and this is a hard line he’s never allowed himself to cross.

At any rate, something else the angel just said worries at his mind. He pulls away from Aziraphale to look into his face. “Aziraphale,” he says, “I never tempted you. Never did. Never would.” He hadn’t, either. Not even in their earliest days. It just hadn’t seemed fair, somehow. Hadn’t seemed right. (Besides which, he’s pretty sure that any such efforts would have resulted in Aziraphale smiting him right out of his corporation. He’s never held any illusions about which of them would win in a fight.)

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says, “you tempt me every day.” Crowley stiffens, pulls away, ice forming inside his chest. Does he really think—? But Aziraphale shakes his head a little, lips quirked in a knowing smile. He leans close, presses a kiss behind Crowley’s ear. “I know it isn’t, oh, Official tempting. I know you’ve never done that to me. And of course I  _ would _ know, Crowley.”

Crowley slumps a little, the tension leaving his shoulders. “Okay,” he says. “That’s all right, then.”

Aziraphale pauses. “Although, sometime perhaps you might?” he adds, sounding hopeful.

_ That _ thought hits Crowley’s nervous system like lightning striking an oak tree. Tempting the angel,  _ really, actually _ Tempting him… Crowley shudders. “Angel,” he says, “you can’t jussst sssay things like that.” His tongue is going all forked, entirely without his permission. 

Aziraphale’s eyes gleam. “Things like what, my dear?” he murmurs. “If you’d rather, I could bless you. Haven’t done a good divine ecstasy since the 1600s.”

There is only so much a demon can be expected to take. Crowley stares at Aziraphale dumbly while impossible, delirious images flash through his mind.

“Sod this,” he mutters, and drags Aziraphale back to his mouth. His tongue still won’t behave itself, so he may as well put it to good use. He licks into Aziraphale’s mouth and lets his tongue wind itself completely around Aziraphale’s, fluttering the forked tip along the flat of it. The angel makes a little cry of delight that goes straight down Crowley’s spine and into his cock, which leaks an excited pulse of pre-come.

Crowley tries to ignore this, because he is rapidly approaching the point at which even  _ thinking _ about his cock may send him hurtling over the precipice. It’s pressed tightly up against the soft, rounded belly of the primary object of his desires, and said object is giving him a very enthusiastic, very  _ thorough  _ kiss. 

Aziraphale winds his fingers through the hair at the nape of Crowley’s neck and tugs, which has an effect on Crowley’s nervous system rather similar to licking one’s finger and sticking it in an electrical socket. Crowley gasps, drawing the air straight from Aziraphale’s mouth, writhing his hips in a slow, helpless rhythm. Aziraphale — ever thoughtful — pushes a thigh forward for him to rut on, which he takes without hesitation. He thinks about Aziraphale’s perfectly pressed trousers, about how Aziraphale is letting him mess them up. With a shiver, he wonders if Aziraphale would let him come on them. 

“That’s lovely,” Aziraphale murmurs, preoccupied with playing with Crowley’s hair. Crowley thinks of when Aziraphale discovered marzipan and spent the next year completely obsessed with it, traveling to Lübeck, to Tallinn, to Königsberg, searching for the perfect flavor, the perfect variety, wanting to eat little else  _ but _ marzipan. 

Crowley’s throat goes tight and hot at the thought of being treated like one of Aziraphale’s delectables. He squirms against Aziraphale’s thigh; he’s not  _ trying _ to, but his corporation is barely under his control at the moment. Aziraphale chooses this moment to slide his mouth back over Crowley’s and Crowley groans, long and low, grinding himself against Aziraphale’s thigh.

Crowley has indulged in self-stimulation over the years from time to time. He’s dabbled in most of the other human pleasures; it’d be strange if he’d left out this one. And it feels good, yeah, but he doesn’t like to do it too often. For one thing, it’s messy. For another, his thoughts invariably drift to blue eyes and blond, curly hair, and it feels unpleasantly filthy to involve Aziraphale in an act he is unaware of and certainly hasn’t agreed to. This makes Crowley consider, not for the first time, that he really is a pretty shit demon. 

The point is that it’s been decades since Crowley’s last orgasm, and he is dangerously close to having one  _ right now _ at Aziraphale’s hands. 

It is this thought —  _ at the angel’s hands  _ — that sends alarms blaring in Crowley’s mind, reminding him that he has to stop this before it progresses any further. It’s going to have to be him. He doesn’t think Aziraphale has thought through the implications of their actions here. He’s increasingly convinced, in fact, that Aziraphale has not. Crowley realizes, with the dread of inevitability, that he’s about to say something very self-destructive and stupid to make Aziraphale aware of this oversight. 

“Angel,” he tries to mumble against Aziraphale’s mouth. “Angel, hang on—” Fuck, Aziraphale’s  _ tongue _ is in his mouth, how is he supposed to stop this? But they haven’t made it through six thousand years and an apocalypse just for Crowley to ruin things for both of them at the last minute. No, he’s going to have to settle for just ruining things for himself, same as he always does. “Angel,” he tries again. 

Aziraphale disengages from the kiss, nipping Crowley’s bottom lip as he does. He licks at Crowley’s neck. “Demon,” he says agreeably, then sets himself to sucking a little series of kisses down Crowley’s throat and to his collarbone.

This is the worst thing Crowley has ever had to do. He closes his eyes, summons the memory of his wings burning, imagines it happening to the angel. Aziraphale is mouthing gently at the hollow of Crowley’s throat. It feels so good that Crowley wants to cry. He would pray for strength if there were anyone left to listen to his prayers.  _ Please_, he thinks anyway, uselessly sending it out into the universe,  _ please help me do this. I have to, but I can’t. Please, I can’t.  _

“Aziraphale, wait,” Crowley gasps, pulling away, putting a hateful column of air between himself and the angel. “Wait.”

Aziraphale stares at him, pink and pretty with his tousled curls making a blond halo around his head, everything Crowley has ever dared to want.

“Angel,” Crowley says, “what if you—”

“What if I what?” he says, frowning.

Crowley swallows hard, trying to force the stupid, horrible words out of his throat. He can’t believe he’s about to say this. He could have everything,  _ everything _ , and he is throwing it away. He is a fucking terrible demon. 

“What if you.” He stares helplessly at the angel, separated by a wide gulf of distance that he is about to make permanent. “Fall,” he says, the word cutting free from his throat like a shard of glass. “What if you Fall.”

It hangs there between them, deadly and devastating. Hot tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He didn’t  _ really _ think he was going to get to have this. He knows they can’t. Aziraphale will agree with him, will say, of course, how stupid I was to think we could do this, well, let’s just have that bottle of Beaujolais I stashed in the back and we’ll forget this ever happened. And Crowley will have too much wine and will crack jokes and then will go home to his flat and will cry. Alone. 

But Aziraphale will be safe and Aziraphale will not burn.

“I see,” Aziraphale says, his fingers stilling in Crowley’s hair. He takes a step back from Crowley, and Crowley can actually feel his heart cracking in two.

Aziraphale and Crowley face each other, Aziraphale in deep consideration and Crowley ready for the guillotine to fall. The room becomes still and silent. The noises from the street fade to nothing, the atoms of the air ceasing their vibration, as the universe pauses to watch. Crowley can wait until the end of eternity for Aziraphale to finally speak; he will not be the one to break this silence. Not when he knows what waits on the other side of it.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says after a time, “you do want this?”

Crowley is trembling. “Just want you, angel,” he says, flaying himself open and laying himself bare. “Any way I can have you. Just— not if you—” He can’t say it again, he  _ can’t. _

“Fall,” Aziraphale says. Crowley nods shakily. 

“Do you trust me?” Aziraphale asks, his face gone serious and still. 

Crowley’s eyes widen in surprise.  _ What in the Hades kind of a question is that? _ Does he  _ trust _ him? What does trust even mean for two celestial beings who have walked the Earth together since the first day humanity was invented? 

Crowley thinks of a tartan thermos. 

He thinks of a white wing, extended.

“Yes,” he says, which is the only thing he ever really says to Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale steps close, folds Crowley’s hands into his own. “Look to me, Crowley,” he says, and when Crowley does, he jolts with surprise. Aziraphale’s eyes are a thousand miles of blue sky, glowing with angelic grace.  _ Principality, _ Crowley thinks, remembering a far-off garden, remembering a flaming sword.

“Demon Crowley,” he says, “I love you. And _I_ _will not Fall_.” It’s the same Voice that once defended the gates of Eden, ringing with power, resonating from the walls of the shop as though they are standing in a vast cathedral. These are Words, spoken by a Principality, written into reality like words etched into stone, the truth of them so deep that it is carved into bedrock. Crowley fights the sudden, powerful desire to drop to his knees. Aziraphale is terrifying and _magnificent._ The truth of his love _scours_ Crowley, leaves him raw and exposed. 

“Oh,” Crowley says, “oh, God. Oh, angel. I—” He cannot speak. He is faintly aware that tears are streaming down his cheeks. 

The divine light fades back into the usual warm-yellow lighting of the bookshop and Aziraphale looks like… well, like Aziraphale. Like a fussy bookseller, instead of an Angel of the Lord.

Aziraphale rests a gentle hand on Crowley’s cheek. “Do you believe me?” Aziraphale asks.

Crowley nods, still rendered speechless. Aziraphale smiles, and his eyes soften. He is once again Crowley’s Aziraphale, and Crowley exhales a long, ragged breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“There are so  _ many _ things I want to do to you, Crowley,” Aziraphale says. “And I won’t Fall for any of them.”

_ He wants me_, Crowley thinks, dazed.  _ He wants it so much he’s willing to risk this.  _ Crowley has wanted Aziraphale since he first understood what wanting even was. He’s spent millennia repressing that want, tucking it away into a little corner of his soul and pulling it out only on very special occasions when he’s shut away in his flat, alone. It is always there, always with him, and he has never had any illusions that Aziraphale felt the same. Never even dared to hope.

But Aziraphale  _ does _ want him, he’s said so. In Words, actual  _ Words.  _

“To me,” he says dumbly. “Thingsss.  _ To _ me.” His mouth does not seem to be receiving signals from his brain at the moment.

Brief worry passes through Aziraphale’s eyes. “If you like?” he ventures. 

_ Dear God, thank you_, Crowley tells Her silently.  _ Thank you for this.  _ It is the first prayer he has said in 6,000 years.

“Yess, Aziraphale,” he hisses. “Fuck, yesssss.”

Aziraphale beams. “In that case,” Aziraphale, Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate says, “yes.  _ To _ you, my dear.”

“What,” Crowley says, his throat dry and tight. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

Aziraphale’s eyes narrow slightly and his mouth turns up at the corners, and oh God, Crowley knows that look. Aziraphale looks  _ hungry_.

~-~-~-~-~-~

Wordlessly, Aziraphale encircles Crowley’s wrists with his broad hands. He gently, firmly pins them to the wall, near Crowley’s shoulders. And then he steps forward, slotting his brown oxfords in between Crowley’s snakeskin boots, and he  _ leans_. He presses his full weight against Crowley, chest to chest, hip to hip. His breath is hot against Crowley’s ear. Crowley wriggles a little and finds that his wrists won’t even move an inch. He groans. Aziraphale is bloody strong, and he is  _ well _ pinned. His cock jerks and throbs in the confines of his jeans. 

Aziraphale brushes his lips against Crowley’s earlobe. “You’re mine. Are you not, Crowley?”

Every cell in Crowley’s body cries out with the answer to Aziraphale’s question. Six thousand years of wanting, of  _ needing_, coalesce into a single moment of brilliant, agonized relief. A silent explosion is going off inside his mind. All he can see is Aziraphale, all he  _ knows _ is Aziraphale. 

“Yessssssss,” he moans. “Yours, Aziraphale.  _ Always_.” 

Aziraphale nuzzles and licks at Crowley’s neck. “And I can do what I like with you?” he asks.

_ Oh God, oh fuck, yes, yes, yes.  _ Aziraphale is testing the waters, Crowley can tell. Testing to see whether Crowley likes this, whether he wants it. It’s endearing, and also completely unnecessary, because Crowley is fucking  _ gone _ for him. 

“Bloody stupid question,” he gasps. “Course you can. Anything you like. All yoursss, angel.”

Aziraphale pushes his hips forward, angling them so that Crowley can feel his cock through his trousers, thick and hard and rigid. 

“Aziiiiiraphale,” Crowley moans helplessly. He wants to see that cock, wants to taste it, touch it, wants to swallow it down. He  _ needs _ it. He writhes uselessly in Aziraphale’s firm grip.

“That is what you do to me,” Aziraphale murmurs, his breath tickling Crowley’s ear. “You gorgeous, impossible thing.” He nips at Crowley’s earlobe. 

Crowley cannot be expected to withstand this; nobody could. His face is pressed into Aziraphale’s blond curls, and Aziraphale’s tongue is on his ear, and Aziraphale’s cock is pressing into his belly, and Aziraphale  _ wants  _ him and is  _ going to have him_. He is teetering on the edge of a great, yawning precipice. It is  _ too much_.

“Want to touch you, angel,” Crowley pleads. “Pleassse, I need to.” He flicks his tongue at Aziraphale’s throat, desperate to get the taste of him into his mouth.

Aziraphale withdraws enough to be able to look Crowley in the eyes. He studies Crowley’s face for a moment. Crowley has a terrifying stomach-drop of a moment when he thinks that Aziraphale is put off by his snake’s eyes —  _ why _ did he let Aziraphale take his sunglasses away — but then Aziraphale presses a quick kiss to his mouth.

“Yes,” he says, as though Crowley has just proposed trying out a new restaurant for dinner. “Yes, I think I’d rather like that. Shall we to bed then, my dear?” 

“Yes, yessss, let’s do that,” Crowley says, a bit frantic. Followed by, a second later, “Wait. Angel, you don’t  _ have _ a bed.” 

Crowley has spent countless hours in the bookshop, can name every book and its place on every shelf, knows exactly where Aziraphale keeps the good corkscrew and the special occasion brandy. There is no bedroom. If there  _ were _ a bedroom, which there isn’t, because the angel doesn’t even  _ sleep_, Crowley would know it by heart as well. He’d have made especially sure of it, in fact.

Aziraphale lifts an eyebrow, as though to say,  _ obviously I have a bed or I wouldn’t have suggested taking you there, would I? _

Oh, God. “You miracled up an entire bedroom,” Crowley says flatly. 

Aziraphale turns pink, releasing Crowley’s hands. “Well,” he says.

“When?”

“Before we went to the Ritz earlier.”

“Before—” The rest of this sentence catches in Crowley’s throat. 

“I thought it might, er. Come in useful. Later on.” Aziraphale says. He is looking at Crowley with a smile Crowley could only describe as  _ naughty _ and oh dear Lord, he’s  _ planned _ all of this. Crowley’s knees, never quite entirely au fait with the concept of bipedalism, are just about to give up the plot entirely.

“Come in useful,” Crowley repeats. Aziraphale’s cock is hard and thick against him. Aziraphale wants him, wanted him,  _ has wanted him_. He miracled a  _ bedroom _ so that he could  _ take _ Crowley to it. Crowley cannot believe this is happening, and he is both agonizingly aroused and also terrified that it will somehow be taken from him.

“Quite,” Aziraphale says, so close he can feel the angel’s lips brush his ears. “I thought that perhaps I could start by lying you on the bed and...well, tasting you.”

Crowley feels a white-hot swell of pleasure rising up in his belly. He shoves his own hand into his mouth and bites down  _ hard_. He squeezes his eyes shut and presses his forehead against the angel’s chest, trembling.  _ Not yet_, he thinks desperately _, not yet, not yet, not yet. _

After a moment, the danger has passed, and he is able to open his eyes again to look at Aziraphale.

“Fuck,” Crowley says, unable to manage much else.

Aziraphale looks absolutely  _ delighted_, which isn’t helping one bit. “Oh, Crowley, did you just—”

“No,” Crowley says quickly, wanting to cut off the end of that sentence before it makes his answer a lie. “No thanks to you, angel,” he says, trying for sarcastic but landing, he thinks, somewhere around trembling adoration. “Give a demon some warning before you say things like that, for Satan’s sake.”

“You could have done,” Aziraphale says, in the same tone of voice he uses to try to convince Crowley to buy him one  _ each _ of the chocolates in the dessert tray at the patisserie down the street. (Crowley, of course, always does, and then watches as Aziraphale unwraps each one with precise, careful fingers before popping them into his mouth to savor them, making little moans of delight, and oh fucking Hell, Crowley really needs to stop thinking about this  _ right now_.)

Then, thoughtfully, Aziraphale says, “Really though, I think I’d rather if you did it on me.” Before Crowley can get out more than the first syllable of a shocked, “Aziraphale!,” Aziraphale raises his hand and snaps his fingers. 

Crowley finds himself lying on his back on a soft, tartan-patterned bedspread, in a bedroom that feels remarkably well-lived-in for having been brought into existence not six hours previously. It’s small and cozy. There is a Tiffany lamp on the nightstand giving off a faint yellow glow and an overstuffed armchair next to a small bookshelf on the far wall. And next to the armchair, on the floor, is a padded basket that looks warm and comfortable and— and perfect for a snake to curl up in. 

_ Oh, angel_. 

Crowley looks up from the bed to see Aziraphale standing next to it with hands clasped behind his back, fully dressed, complete with waistcoat and jacket and bow tie. He is gazing down at Crowley as though he’s the dessert course at the Ritz. Crowley lifts himself up on his elbows, but Aziraphale sits on the edge of the bed and presses a hand to Crowley’s chest, pushing him back down. Aziraphale’s hand is heavy, pinning him firmly to the bed. He is so bloody  _ strong. _

“Angel,” Crowley says with a dry throat.

With his free hand, Aziraphale pushes a stray lock of hair away from Crowley’s face. “Crowley, love,” he says, and oh God, that-- Crowley’s skin goes hot and cold all over. “I think I’ve been quite cruel to you.”

Crowley opens his mouth to protest, but Aziraphale moves his hand to Crowley’s mouth, covering it with enough force that he presses Crowley’s head down into the mattress a little. Crowley’s nose is flooded with the scent of petrichor. It is only with monumental effort that he keeps himself from licking at Aziraphale’s hand.

“Shh,” Aziraphale says, “just listen.” Crowley feels feral and desperate at this casual display of possession. He writhes, thrusting his hips uselessly into the air. This is  _ unbearable_.

Aziraphale waits, watching Crowley with patient eyes until Crowley manages a modicum of stillness. 

“I’ve been cruel,” Aziraphale says, “and we both know it. You have always been so brave, even in the face of— of rejection,” he says. His eyes are bright, unblinking. “I was such a coward for so long.” Crowley stares up at Aziraphale. He wants to protest, because even if it’s true, the praise isn’t something Crowley can bear to hear. But Aziraphale’s wide hand is pressed quite firmly down over his mouth, so all he can do is listen.

“And through all of that, you did as I asked. Whatever I asked of you, even sometimes when I didn’t ask at all. And it occurred to me,” Aziraphale says, looking down fondly at the demon whose mouth he is very effectively silencing, “that you must like it. Like when I ask you to do things. Am I correct, Crowley?”

_ Oh. Oh, God. _ Crowley realizes, in this moment, that he is  _ completely _ fucked. Aziraphale has battered down the cellar doors of Crowley’s dark and wretched psyche, and he is shining light on it with a giant torch. Crowley whines in the back of his throat and stares helplessly at Aziraphale, who has not even bothered to uncover Crowley’s mouth.

“Yes,” Aziraphale says with a little smile. “I thought so. And you’ll let me, won’t you? Let me do as I like with you. You’ll... take what I give you.” Aziraphale’s cheeks tinge with pink, but his eyes burn steady and blue.

Crowley’s thoughts stutter and falter like a needle skipping on a record player. Aziraphale— his angel — wants him to— wants— he is to lie there and — Aziraphale wants him to— wants him to  _ take it_. He squirms and writhes in Aziraphale’s firm grip. He hadn’t been aware that he wanted this. He’s never even allowed himself to  _ think  _ about this, not really. He’d barely let himself imagine snuggling up against Aziraphale on the couch, much less — much less  _ letting him do things.  _ Much less  _ taking what he gives him. _

“Is that all right?” Aziraphale asks. He  _ must _ know the answer, but he’s asking anyway. And Crowley could say no. If he did, Aziraphale would let him up and they could go back to watching telly and drinking wine in the back room. And it would be fine, really fine.

Equally, he knows that saying yes means delivering himself over to Aziraphale’s hands, and that he has never wanted anything more, nor been terrified of anything more, in his entire life.

_ Need this _ alternates with  _ what if he burns _ in his mind. Aziraphale said he wouldn’t Fall, and he said it in Words, and Crowley had said he trusted him. And he  _ did _ trust Aziraphale _, _ and he  _ wanted  _ him so badly, but— but Crowley is good at being afraid, long-practiced at it. 

And he’s no good at all at having faith. 

He stares up at his angel’s calm, blue eyes. Aziraphale places his free hand alongside Crowley’s temple, just over his sigil. There’s a tingle of divinity, which Crowley leans into like a flower finding the sun. And then, with just a hint of angelic steel in his voice, Aziraphale says, “ _Be not afraid_.”

All at once, Crowley’s twisted, tangled emotions fade into the background. It’s like someone turning down the volume on a record player. He feels peace— peace, and an abiding sense that this is all going to work out somehow. He swallows hard, because he knows what this is. 

It’s grace.

Not God’s grace, no, never Hers, he’s cut off from that forever. But this grace, he thinks blasphemously, is better. It’s better because it’s Aziraphale’s, and it’s for him. Maybe he doesn’t deserve it; he’s pretty sure he doesn’t, in fact — but it’s  _ his_. Aziraphale is bedrock sure of himself, as sure as the Words that breathed the universe to life. And so Crowley is now too, because Aziraphale has extended grace upon him, like a wing protecting him from a sudden storm. 

And maybe Aziraphale thinks himself a coward — though if he is, it’s very much something they have in common — but he’s Crowley’s better angel. And Crowley has been in his hands for a very, very long time.

Crowley hisses out an answer before Aziraphale can even finish taking his hand away from his mouth.

“ _Yessssss_ , angel.  _ Anything._”


	3. Chapter 3

Crowley is rather desperate to see Aziraphale out of his fussy, stuffy clothing, but Aziraphale seems to be in no hurry to divest himself of his well-loved suit. Instead he lets his hand drift gently over Crowley's cock, compressed and throbbing in his trousers. "That can't be comfortable, my dear," he says, eyes gleaming.

"Isn't," Crowley manages, thrusting upwards to meet the warmth of Aziraphale's soft hand. He raises his own hand, ready to snap his fingers to divest himself of his clothing, but Aziraphale catches his wrist, stopping him. "Angel?" he asks.

"Crowley," Aziraphale says in a chiding tone of voice, "you are a gift. And you know how I feel about unwrapping gifts."

Crowley does. He has witnessed it on many occasions, the way that Aziraphale places the gift carefully in front of him, smooths down the corners, carefully tugs at the bow to loosen the knot, slides a fingernail through the seams to unfasten the sellotape, pats the paper down, presses the folds and the creases out with his hands as he gradually reveals the gift hidden within, all while Crowley is huffing out exasperated sighs and saying things like, "Just  _ open _ it, angel." He realizes that he is about to experience this first-hand, from the point of view of the gift.

"Aziraphale," he says urgently.

"Patience, my dear," Aziraphale says. He leans over Crowley and finds the top button of Crowley's shirt, slipping it through the buttonhole carefully and precisely, making sure not to twist or tug at the fabric.

"Oh, God," Crowley says faintly.

~-~-~-~-~-~

Crowley doesn't know how long it takes Aziraphale to undo all of the buttons. It feels like hours. All he can do is lie there, staring up at Aziraphale, who is concentrating  _ very hard _ on Crowley. Aziraphale's clever hands undo him one by one, loosening each button so very carefully, as though it's the most precious thing he's ever held. Occasionally Crowley can't help himself and thrusts his hips upward with a cry of impatient distress. "Please, angel," he says about halfway through. "Just let me miracle it off."

"Shhh," Aziraphale says, focused on his task. Crowley's chest is half-exposed. Aziraphale presses a finger to his own lips and then into the hollow between Crowley's clavicles. He traces his finger down Crowley's bare skin.

" _Unnnnh. _ " Crowley's back arches off the bed. It's  _ one finger_; how can  _ one finger _ feel so—

"Steady, darling."

Crowley thunks his head against the mattress and whimpers.

When Aziraphale finally finishes the last button, he smiles fondly at Crowley and says, "Up." He helps Crowley sit up on the bed and slides his jacket off his shoulders, followed by his shirt. With a snap of his fingers, both articles of clothing are neatly hung in the closet.

"Oh,  _ you're _ allowed to do miracles," Crowley says.

Aziraphale lifts an eyebrow, looking mildly surprised. "I never said you weren't allowed," he says, and with one hand flat against Crowley's chest, pushes him back down onto the bed.

Crowley supposes that's technically true; he  _ hadn't _ said Crowley wasn't allowed. He'd just strongly implied that he'd be Quite Disappointed if Crowley  _ did_.

The trousers, thank Anyone who's listening, don't take nearly as long. Aziraphale slips Crowley's belt out of its loops, undoes his flies, pushes the fabric down his hips...and stops still. Crowley, as is his habit, is not wearing underwear.

" _Naughty _ demon," Aziraphale says, his eyes dark with desire. His gaze rests on Crowley's trousers where they are bunched at his hips. Low and nearly inaudible, he says, "Well, sod  _ this_," and with a snap of his fingers, Crowley is naked as the day he was made.

Aziraphale eyes Crowley from head to toe. "Look at you," Aziraphale breathes. "Just—" He makes a content, pleased little sigh that Crowley is more used to associating with Aziraphale being presented with a nice créme brulee. (His favorite dessert, Crowley happens to know.)

And it's not that Crowley isn't looking forward to Aziraphale taking his clothes off—he  _ is_, he very much is—but there's something exquisite, something  _ raw _ about the way Crowley is exposed and bare to Aziraphale, while Aziraphale is buttoned up and prim as ever, clothed head to toe in tartan and tweed. He's even still got his bow tie on. It's like Crowley is on  _ display _ for Aziraphale, like he's being  _ presented  _ to him. Crowley swallows hard, his skin prickly and hot.

Aziraphale rests a possessive hand on Crowley's chest, staring down at him. "I could eat you up," he says. He trails his fingers down Crowley's chest and onto his abdomen, making the lean muscles there twitch and jerk. Crowley's cock strains upward, stiff and leaking.

Intent on his task, Aziraphale slides his fingers to the inside of Crowley's thigh, almost but not quite touching Crowley's cock. His forehead is creased in concentration, his lower lip caught in his teeth.

"Angel—" Crowley says, voice tight.

"Mm?" Aziraphale murmurs. And then he wraps his hand around Crowley's erect cock, thumbing the head to smear sticky fluid around it.

Crowley arches his back, thrusting up into Aziraphale's hand with a choked " _hnnnnnnnngh. _ " Aziraphale moves his hand in long, precise strokes, his grip firm and gentle, and Aziraphale's hand is  _ slippery _ somehow, which — did he burn a miracle? — Crowley can't think about that right now. He can't really think about  _ anything _ right now.

"Angel," he says, desperate, lifting his head to watch.

And then Aziraphale leans over and swallows Crowley's cock into his mouth. It's hot and wet and has the same metallic tang of divinity as kissing him does.

Crowley cries out, "Aziraphale, f-fuck!" and lets his head fall back down onto the bed. When he's regained enough control over himself to be able to open his eyes, he looks down and yes, yes, this is actually happening, Aziraphale's blond curls are nestled between his thighs and Aziraphale's lips are wrapped around his cock.

" _God, _ " he says.

Aziraphale licks at him, giving him short, shallow sucks, pausing every so often to trace the crown of Crowley's cock with his tongue. He grips the base of his cock with a slippery hand and works it back and forth in time with his mouth. Crowley's abdomen tightens, his breath coming fast and shallow.

"I'm—I'm gonna put my— _fuck_ — my hands in your hair, angel," Crowley says, his voice shaking. In response, Aziraphale does something fluttery with his tongue to the head of Crowley's cock, and Crowley groans and thrusts his hands into those curls like he's been  _ wanting to for so fucking long_.

He's completely lost control of his corporation at this point. His breath is coming in high-pitched whines, like the whistle of a train. His thoughts are fractured and he thinks he might be saying some of them out loud, but he's not sure— _angel, fuck—your mouth—love this—love you—angel, angel, please—please, Aziraphale—Aziraphale— _

Aziraphale is still wearing his bloody tartan bow tie and tweed waistcoat, and Crowley fucking  _ loves it_, he has his angel's pretty mouth on his cock and he's got his pretty hair in his hands, and he's dressed like a fucking Oxford don, and it's  _ Aziraphale_.

"Going to—" he gasps out, the pleasure spiraling up through him, fast and urgent. "Going to—angel—oh my  _ god, Aziraphale_," because at the last moment Aziraphale pulls off his cock with a wet  _ pop_, still working his hand fast and tight over Crowley, and Crowley spills, helpless, onto Aziraphale's mouth and chin.

After, Crowley lies bonelessly splayed out on the bed, staring as Aziraphale licks his spend from his lips, then drags his hand through it and sucks it from his fingers as well. "Messy," Aziraphale says, sounding ridiculously pleased about it.

"Aziraphale?" Crowley says. Aziraphale turns his brilliant blue eyes to Crowley's face, still licking and sucking at his own fingers. He raises a questioning eyebrow.

"I love you," Crowley says, and his breath doesn't even hitch a little bit. How about that, Crowley thinks, dazed. He's been holding that inside for so long, and now he's breathed words into its beating heart and let it fly free.

"Crowley," Aziraphale says, his voice catching. Without warning, he leans down for a filthy, open kiss. Crowley can taste himself on Aziraphale's mouth, and his cock stirs again.

He really is Hell's worst demon, he thinks without rancor. He's just told an angel he bloody well loves him. Although he's also just  _ defiled _ an angel, so maybe Hell would give him a few points for that one. I mean, not every day a demon goes around corrupting an actual  _ angel— _

Crowley stiffens suddenly, and Aziraphale blinks in alarm. "Crowley?" he asks. "All right?"

"Are you—" Crowley starts, but the rest of the words stick in his throat. He tries again. "Are you still—are you—your wings, Aziraphale. Show me your wings?" It's not that he doesn't trust Aziraphale—he does, he really does. But he is afraid, and he needs to see.

"Please," Crowley says.

"Of course, darling," Aziraphale says. He raises himself up, throwing a leg over to straddle Crowley's hips. Without breaking eye contact, he undoes his tie and slides it loose from his collar. Then the waistcoat comes off, and then the shirt, button by button. Crowley watches this transfixed, eyes tracking every movement of the angel's fingers, memorizing every inch of pale, pink skin that emerges from the layers of tartan and tweed.

When Aziraphale is finished disrobing to the waist, he snaps his fingers to hang his clothing neatly in the closet next to Crowley's. His trousers are still on, the creased pleats sliding against the bare skin of Crowley's legs. And then he rolls his shoulders back, and with a faint  _ whump_, his wings emerge into the physical plane.

Gleaming white, from wingtip to wingtip.

Crowley goes limp in relief.  _ Oh, thank God_, he mouths.

"I knew that I wouldn't," Aziraphale says. Before Crowley can answer, he goes on, "And do you know how I knew that?"

"No," Crowley says. "No bloody idea. Seemed like you might, being… defiled by a demon and all."

Aziraphale smiles. "The defiling  _ was _ rather nice, I thought," he says primly. "But I could never Fall for an act of true love, Crowley." He watches Crowley's face, seeing if Crowley understands.

Crowley understands. And for Aziraphale to say it so casually, so freely...it is as though all the dark and wretched parts of his soul have cracked open to let the sunlight in. All he can do is stare up at his— _ his_—gorgeous angel.

"You—" Crowley tries to say, but the words won't come.  _ Say it again, _ he wants to say.  _ Say it again, please, I am begging you to say it again. _

"I love you, Crowley," Aziraphale says. "I have loved you for ages, and I will say it a thousand times over, to make up for all the times I should have said it and didn't. I suppose I felt some misguided loyalty to—oh, to Heaven, or to what I thought Heaven represented, or—it doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it," Crowley manages. He cannot really believe they are having this conversation at all, much less while Aziraphale is half-naked and pinning him to his bed.

"It doesn't," Aziraphale says firmly. "And I am not finished with you," he adds.

"Oh yeah?" Crowley says, trying for a bit of demonic swagger to cover over the trembling in his voice. He means to say something sharp or witty next, but he never makes it that far, because Aziraphale snaps his fingers one more time and divests himself of his trousers. Crowley finds himself staring at Aziraphale's lovely, pink, stout cock, hard and thick, with a pearly drop of fluid at the very tip. It's just as pretty as he'd thought it would be, suited perfectly to Aziraphale. And just like that, his own cock is fully back to attention as well.

Crowley can't help himself. He bends forward in a way that human spines really aren't physically capable of, and he extends his forked tongue to lick that pearly little drop away from Aziraphale's cock, swirling his tongue over the sensitive crown a few times, taking the scent of Aziraphale's musk into his nose and throat.

"Oh," Aziraphale gasps, "oh, that's—that's  _ very _ nice, Crowley." He lets Crowley lick at him for a while, making increasingly pleased little noises, but after a few minutes he pushes Crowley's head gently away. "Naughty demon," he says, which sends a thrill of arousal  _ right _ down Crowley's spine. "Trying to distract me when I have  _ plans _ for you."

"Only trying?" Crowley says with a smirk, high with elation that he's finally got to touch Aziraphale's cock.

"On your belly, serpent," Aziraphale says, sounding fond and adoring, and Crowley  _ really _ shouldn't be so turned on by that. He readily complies, wriggling over onto his stomach and turning his head sideways on the mattress.

"Angel, what—" he says, stopping when he feels a heavy hand come down on the back of his neck.

"Shh," Aziraphale says. "I believe we'd discussed earlier about…" He clears his throat. "About taking what I give you."

"Yeah," Crowley whispers, his eyes going wide. Aziraphale's divinity floods the room briefly as though he's done a minor miracle, and then— _oh, God, oh, God_. "Nnnnnnngh," Crowley moans, because suddenly he is loose and open and slippery. "Frivolous miracle, angel," he groans into the tartan coverlet.

"I think you'll find it's not frivolous in the slightest, my dear," Aziraphale says mildly, punctuating his point by slipping a miraculously oiled finger inside Crowley. Crowley gasps and arches his back, but Aziraphale simply presses down on his neck to hold him in place while he pushes his finger all the way in, leaving it there for a moment to let Crowley get used to it.

"You've done this before," Crowley gasps into the bed. He didn't really  _ mean _ to say that; it just sort of came out. His higher brain functions aren't fully operating right now, and it's really pretty fucking obvious that this isn't Aziraphale's first time.

"My dear," Aziraphale murmurs, and he should  _ not _ be able to sound that fussy when he has his finger deep inside Crowley's arse. "You know about the gentlemen's clubs."

"Wait, what?" Crowley yelps, trying to turn around to look at Aziraphale but stopped again by Aziraphale's firm, inescapable grip. "The ones in the 1800s?  _ Those _ gentlemen's clubs?"

"You were asleep," Aziraphale points out, managing somehow to sound prim. "I was bored and lonely."

"You said you were  _ dancing! _ You said you learned the gavotte!"

"I did learn the gavotte," Aziraphale says. "I learned some other things as well."

Crowley's chest is tight. He doesn't like thinking about Aziraphale at  _ gentlemen's clubs. _ If the gentlemen in question weren't long-dead, they'd be in danger of a fairly nasty cursing. "I can't believe you," Crowley groans.

A second finger slides in alongside the first, stretching and pushing inside him. "Are you jealous, Crowley?" Aziraphale asks. Crowley's face goes red and he buries his face in the soft mattress. He is not going to answer that question. He  _ can't  _ answer it.

"Only," Aziraphale goes on, gently stretching and twisting his fingers inside Crowley, "you needn't be. I did it for you, after all."

Crowley goes very still. "You what," he says.

"I heard rumors about what was going on," Aziraphale says. "And I thought—" He clears his throat. "Well, I thought, I imagine Crowley knows all about this. And I began to think that…" He drifts into silence and his fingers go still.

"Angel," Crowley grits out, "are you trying to actually kill me?"

The hand on Crowley's neck drifts up into the hair at the nape of his neck, latching on and tugging a bit. "Just lost in a memory for a moment," Aziraphale says. "The 1800s were so  _ very _ lonely, you know."

"You've mentioned," Crowley says into the duvet. He feels a little guilty about it. Only a little, though. He'd been  _ provoked_.

"Anyway," Aziraphale says, "the boys at the clubs were so friendly—"

"I just bet they were," Crowley mutters, and Aziraphale tugs his hair a little more sharply.

"Shush, demon," he says, and Crowley shivers. He has a strong suspicion that Aziraphale  _ shushing _ him is going to play a significant role in future fantasies. He wriggles his hips a little, dragging his cock against the bedclothes to give himself some relief.

"As I was  _ saying_," Aziraphale says, a bit huffily, "they were so friendly and I thought, well, what harm would it do to… to learn a few things? Oh, it was a distant hope, but I hoped that perhaps someday I'd get to try it on you. And I didn't want to be a novice. I wanted to make it good."

He's sliding his fingers back and forth in a slow, regular rhythm, pushing in and then dragging back out, over and over. Crowley makes a low groan. "It's good, angel. I like it," he says.

"Yes," Aziraphale says. "That seems apparent. You're so very pliant, my dear."

Crowley stiffens at this comment, tension knotting into his shoulders. He's not sure how to take that. Is he being too passive? Maybe Aziraphale would like him to be more assertive; maybe  _ he _ should be the one petting and stroking Aziraphale. He's fucking this up; he knew he was going to, and he is, he  _ is.  _ He lifts up, or tries to, but the hand on the back of his neck grows even heavier, keeping him from rising.

"Crowley," Aziraphale's voice comes from behind him. "I  _ like _ you pliant, if that isn't abundantly clear. But if you'd rather, I can let you up—?"

" _No_ ," Crowley shouts, and then bites his lip. "Sorry, didn't mean to—just, no, you don't have to do that, ‘mgood like this."

Crowley can  _ feel _ the smug grin on Aziraphale's face. "Like this?" Aziraphale asks. He shifts on the bed behind Crowley; Crowley feels the mattress depress beneath him and then feels Aziraphale's legs bracketing his own, his warm, fuzzy skin rubbing against Crowley's thighs. The angel is kneeling over him, his left hand still holding Crowley firmly to the bed and his right hand exploring inside Crowley, stroking and stretching and rubbing.

Crowley nods fervently. "Yeah, that's… nnh, that's good," he says.

"Or like this," Aziraphale says softly. His weight shifts on the bed, he brackets Crowley more tightly with his thighs, and Crowley can feel Aziraphale's cock, stiff and hard and pressing against the cleft of his buttocks.

Crowley ruts himself against the bed, helplessly thrusting against the soft surface of the bedclothes, pushing back against Aziraphale's strong hands. If Aziraphale keeps touching him with his cock, he's going to come again, just like this. He thinks of Aziraphale thrusting that lovely, fat cock inside him and a tremor goes all the way down to the base of his spine.

"Is there something you'd like, Crowley?" Aziraphale asks, rocking his hips forward and sliding his cock in between Crowley's buttocks. "Something you'd like me to give you?"

Crowley feels momentarily light-headed and realizes his body has started to hyperventilate. He can't believe Aziraphale is going to make him  _ say  _ it, but fine, if that's what he wants, Crowley will say it, he'll say it as many bloody times as the angel wants. "Yessssss," Crowley hisses. "Inside me. Pleasssssse."

"You know," Aziraphale says idly, as though he's doing nothing more strenuous than perusing the wine menu at Claridge's, "I never did this with any of the boys at the club."

"Oh?" Crowley says, strained. He wants to rub himself against Aziraphale's cock, but Aziraphale is holding him down so well and so thoroughly that all he can do is make little circular motions with his hips. It's just enough to be frustrating. He wants Aziraphale inside him so badly that his want is almost a physical thing, something he could hold within his hands, something he could  _ squeeze. _

"No," Aziraphale says, sounding maddeningly unaffected. "Oh, I let them suck me, and I sucked a few of them."

"‘Ziraphale," Crowley moans. A hot burst of jealousy expands in his lower belly. The thought of some—some  _ human—anyone_— getting to take Aziraphale's cock in their mouth. It's agony, it's intolerable.

"But I never took my pleasure inside them. I suppose in a way I was saving this for you, Crowley. I imagined that when the time came, I'd know what to do."

"Aziraphale, how are you  _ saying— _ " Crowley gasps. "Fuck, I  _ need _ you."

"Oh?" Aziraphale says, a glimmer of something dark in his voice. Crowley tries to turn his head, but Aziraphale prevents him. Crowley thinks he will spend the rest of his life thinking about the weight of Aziraphale's hand on his neck. "How exactly do you need me, darling?"

Bastard  _ fucking _ angel.

"Inssssside me," Crowley begs. He's not above begging, not when it's Aziraphale, not when Aziraphale's hands are holding him down and he's so close to having Aziraphale's beautiful cock inside him.

"Mm," Aziraphale hums, now sounding  _ very much _ like when Crowley's presenting him with his choice of decadent chocolates. "That  _ would _ be nice, my dear. But there's something I'd like you to do for me first. Do you think you could?"

"Anything," Crowley says. His cock is so hard he can't stand it, and Aziraphale is  _ so bloody close _ to pushing inside him. He wants it more than he thinks he's wanted anything, ever. "Anything, name it, I'll do anything. I'll—I'll suck you, I'll make it good, I'll miracle something for you, I'll do a  _ blessing_,  _ anything_."

And then Aziraphale trails the fingers of his right hand down Crowley's back, and Crowley's spine goes cold.

_ I am fucked_, he thinks.  _ Completely and totally fucked. _

"Where was it," Aziraphale murmurs, tracing and stroking between Crowley's shoulder blades. "Ah yes, I think right… here." His fingers dance along the base of Crowley's wings.

Crowley makes a strangled, inhuman noise. He cannot wrap his serpent's tongue around the English language right now, and even if he could, there are no  _ words _ for this. It feels—it feels—this is beyond him, he  _ simply cannot.  _ "Zira—" he gasps, then tries again, "Azir— Ziraphale, oh  _ God_."

Aziraphale  _ chuckles_. He lets his fingers drift, and then, with no warning, he sends little shocks of divine power into the base of Crowley's wings, pulsing at them with his fingers.

Crowley kicks down onto the bed and sucks in a great gasp of air, making a noise like  _ hhhhhnaaaaaaah.  _ It's fucking  _ incredible _ and  _ awful _ and Aziraphale pinning Crowley down is the only thing stopping him from  _ discorporating. _

"You know what I want, Crowley," Aziraphale says, his fingers dancing and playing.

Crowley does know. Every stroke of Aziraphale's fingers, every pulse of divinity, makes his wings tremble and shudder in the strange liminal space where Crowley keeps them tucked away.  _ They are burned_, Crowley wants to say.  _ You don't really want to see them. _

But Aziraphale clearly does. And Crowley thinks, half-stunned, that he is about to give Aziraphale exactly what he wants.

"Please," he gasps. "Please, angel."

Aziraphale lines his cock up with Crowley's oiled entrance so that Crowley can feel the head, fat and thick, pressing against him. He ruts himself backwards against Aziraphale, trying to get it inside him, but Aziraphale moves with him, rocking his own hips backwards and denying Crowley.

"Not yet, love," Aziraphale says. Crowley feels as though his entire body—fuck, his entire  _ consciousness_—is a raw, throbbing nerve. He cannot stand this; he doesn't know how Aziraphale thinks he can go on any longer like this. And then… then Aziraphale slips his hands somehow, impossibly, half into the celestial plane, so that he is  _ touching Crowley's feathers there_. Crowley  _ keens_.

"Give this to me," Aziraphale says in a low, gentle voice. "I love pretty things, Crowley, and you are so very pretty. Your  _ wings _ are so very pretty."

"They're not," Crowley chokes out, still trying uselessly to rock his hips enough to get Aziraphale's cock inside him. "They're not pretty; they're  _ awful_. They're  _ burned_, Aziraphale."

Aziraphale's hands are in the delicate little tertiaries just where Crowley's wings connect to his back. He's petting them, stroking them, rubbing the pads of his fingers along them. The sensation is maddening beyond reason; he's never felt anything like this, he's never even known there could  _ be _ a feeling like this, and Aziraphale  _ isn't stopping. _

"Crowley," Aziraphale is saying. "Crowley." He becomes aware that Aziraphale has been saying his name for a while now.

"Nngh," Crowley moans.

"Crowley, there is  _ nothing _ that could make me not want you. Nothing. Not your wings, not anything. Do you understand?"

He  _ wants  _ to, he  _ does,  _ but—

Aziraphale hooks his index fingers around the delicate tendons at the base of Crowley's wings, just resting there, not tugging, not yet. Crowley feels it and knows what's about to happen.

He moans, frantic. "Oh God, you can't—angel—Aziraphale, please, I can't—don't—"

Aziraphale pauses. "All right, darling?" he asks carefully. He relaxes his grip, leaving his hands hovering but not quite touching.

"Just...just need a minute," Crowley gasps.

Aziraphale makes a reassuring noise. "All we have is time, my love," he says, and he works one of his hands into the hair at the back of Crowley's head, kneading and massaging there. It's grounding, centering.

Crowley wants this. He wants it more than  _ anything.  _ And Aziraphale wants  _ him_. Aziraphale said it, he said it in  _ Words_.

Crowley relaxes into Aziraphale's touch, letting his head hang down, letting Aziraphale work and knead at him. After a while, Crowley says, "All right," in a quiet voice.

Aziraphale slows but doesn't stop his petting and stroking. "You're sure?" he asks. "Only I want you to be sure."

"‘'m sure, angel. Do it."

Aziraphale hums in pleasure and slides his hands down Crowley's bare shoulders, slipping his fingers back around the tendons he'd gripped before. Crowley huffs out a hard exhale. He's letting an angel, his hereditary adversary, wrap his hands around the most delicate part of his person. It is unspeakably intimate. He has spent lifetimes shielding his vulnerabilities, and now an angel has his fingers twined around the most fragile one of all.

But it's not just  _ an _ angel, is it? It's  _ his _ angel.

"My angel," he says, feeling the shape of the words in his mouth.

"Until the end of all things," Aziraphale agrees. Crowley shivers—Aziraphale can just  _ say _ it, just put those words out into the world without effort, just  _ lay _ them there.

"All things," Crowley repeats softly.

Aziraphale strokes the pads of his fingers along Crowley's scapulae, which brings Crowley's attention rather sharply back to his corporation.

"Are you ready, Crowley?" Aziraphale asks.

"No," Crowley says. "Do it anyway."

Aziraphale puts a little pressure behind his grip, and simultaneously he pushes his cock forward, breaching Crowley's entrance by just a half-inch or so. Just enough to tease, the promise of more, the promise of what Crowley actually needs.

" _God_ ," Crowley moans.

"You're going to give this to me, aren't you, Crowley?" Aziraphale says.

Yes, Crowley realizes, he is. He's going to bring his wings out. For Aziraphale.  _ Oh God, oh Satan, oh Someone— _

"Yes," Aziraphale says, as though he'd heard Crowley's thoughts. "You are." And then Aziraphale sends a sharp, divine spark down the length of his wingspan, and he  _ tugs. _

Several things happen all at once. Crowley shouts, " _Fuck," _ and sinks his nails into the bed so deeply that he tears the mattress open. His wings, ebony-black, emerge with a low  _ whump _ into the anticipatory air of the bedroom, extending nearly from wall to wall. And Aziraphale, humming with pleasure, pushes his cock deep inside Crowley's well-oiled arse.

Crowley cannot seem to put any thoughts together that make sense. Aziraphale is  _ inside him_, his beautiful, thick cock stretching him out, and Aziraphale is looking at his wings, yes, his hated wings, but it is what Aziraphale wants, and Crowley will give him anything he wants,  _ anything_.

"Oh," Aziraphale whispers reverently, buried deep inside Crowley, "they're gorgeous. May I touch them, Crowley?"

Crowley is not sure why Aziraphale is bothering to ask for permission, because he's already reaching for his wings before the question is out of his mouth, and all Crowley can do is bang his head weakly against the torn mattress anyway, sending a little drift of down feathers into the air. He's so  _ full_, and the drag of Aziraphale's cock inside him is so  _ fucking _ good.

And then Aziraphale thrusts his hands wrist-deep into Crowley's wings. It's like someone throws the switch on floodlights in Crowley's brain. Crowley hisses a long, drawn-out, "Azzzzzzzzziraphaaaaaale."

And Aziraphale—Aziraphale gasps in ecstasy.

_ How did I ever think I could deny him this?  _ Crowley thinks, dazed and pleasure-drunk.  _ Why did I ever want to? _

"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale says, his voice dark and heavy with desire. "I've wanted this for  _ so long _ , you're—it's—"

"Sssssoo good," Crowley moans.

Aziraphale is only moving an inch at a time, back and forth, teasing Crowley. Crowley doesn't know if it's intentional or if it's because Aziraphale is distracted playing with his wings. Whatever the reason, Crowley's grip on reality is beginning to loosen.

Demons don't groom each other's wings, so it's been a long time—a _very _ long time—since Crowley's feathers were touched by anyone other than himself. The last time had been Beelzebub, roughly yanking at them to inspect them, right after his Fall. Crowley had not allowed anyone to come near them since.

His wings—like Aziraphale's in this respect, or like any celestial being's—are made from true celestial matter. They are sensitive and delicate, and they respond to angelic grace. Every time Aziraphale touches them, it sends a shivery thrill through the feather and into the structure of his wings, all the way down his spine.

Aziraphale's careful, precise fingers stroke and smooth Crowley's primaries, one by one. "Angel—" Crowley says. He tries to push himself up from the bed, but his arms tremble and won't hold his weight. He's not even sure what he was going to say.  _ This is too much, _ or  _ I can't, _ or  _ don't ever stop, please God don't stop_. Though Aziraphale does not seem to be in danger of stopping. He's taking his time, methodically petting every single one of Crowley's feathers. Crowley thinks of all the times he's seen Aziraphale sitting at his desk mending a book, the way he carefully glues the binding, smooths each page into place, taking hours with it if need be.

"Crowley," Aziraphale murmurs. "Too much?"

"Nnyeah," he mumbles. Then, "No." Then, "Don't stop."

Aziraphale laughs, a deep-throated chuckle that Crowley can  _ feel_. "All right, my dear," Aziraphale says. "You're doing so well. You feel so  _ good_, Crowley."

Crowley tries to say  _ I'm not good_, but it just comes out a mumbled mess of nonsense syllables. It doesn't matter, anyway; Aziraphale is pleased. Aziraphale is, in fact,  _ taking his pleasure _ from Crowley,  _ using _ Crowley. His cock is in Crowley's arse, his fingers are in Crowley's wings, and Crowley doesn't really understand how he's being allowed to have this, how it hasn't been taken from him somehow. But that doesn't matter, either; nothing matters except that Aziraphale has him, is having him.

"A bit more, perhaps?" Aziraphale murmurs above him and then pushes his cock in deeper. Crowley gasps, pushes up and back against Aziraphale, trying to get him deeper still. And then… then Aziraphale leans forward, resting more of his weight on Crowley, and Crowley feels hot breath on the back of his neck.

"Ziraphale?" he manages, and then he feels wet warmth enveloping one of his feathers. Aziraphale's  _ mouth is on his feathers oh fucking Hellfire_.

"Angel," he says weakly, "please—" because it's so much; he's not sure he can stand it, especially not if Aziraphale is going to be as thorough about it as he is  _ everything else in his bloody life_.

"Shh," Aziraphale says. "Let me, darling." And he goes back to his task, licking along the length of an ebony feather, mouthing the tip of it, tracing the edge with his tongue.

Crowley lets him. There's nothing else for it; he knows how Aziraphale gets, and he knows he won't stop until he's finished. Crowley thinks for a moment that he's going to have an orgasm; then he thinks he may burst into tears. After a minute (during which Aziraphale has kissed and mouthed his way up three more of his feathers), neither of these things happens. The pleasure is building up inside him like a pressure cooker, and there's nowhere for it to go.

_ Angel_,  _ please,  _ he thinks he says, but maybe it's just in his mind. Maybe he's just thinking it. He's not sure he's even entirely anchored in the physical plane anymore.

Crowley goes a little bit blank for a while. He drifts in and out, writhing his hips against Aziraphale. He lets Aziraphale do whatever he likes, lets him mouth at his feathers and lets him slide his cock back and forth in his arse. It goes on for an age. Hours and minutes mean little to celestial beings, and Aziraphale has been waiting for this for a very long time.

He's making it last.

~-~-~-~-~-~

Crowley drifts back into reality after a while, his hard, leaking cock feeling more urgent. He slips a hand beneath his hips to touch himself, wanting the familiar comfort of his hand against his cock. He's more than ready to come. But he only manages two good strokes before Aziraphale is gently tugging at his arm, pulling it away, patting it down onto the mattress near Crowley's head.

"None of that, my dear," Aziraphale murmurs, and then he  _ tuts_, which is absolutely  _ maddening_,  _ how _ can he make a sound like that when they're—

"I'll help you when it's time," Aziraphale says. "But not yet." He punctuates this statement with a little extra thrust inside Crowley, then goes back to his slow, rhythmic teasing, pressing his face to Crowley's wings again.

"Sometime this  _ century_, angel?" Crowley says, the effect somewhat ruined by how breathless he sounds.

Aziraphale gently flicks the back of his ear. "Smart-mouthed demon," he says affectionately. Crowley groans and drops his head back onto the bed.

It doesn't matter how much Crowley writhes or squirms; Aziraphale won't let him come. One or two good, hard thrusts would do it at this point, or a few strokes of his hand, or fuck, even just a really good rake of his feathers. But Aziraphale is gentle and slow and methodical, and he is driving Crowley slowly and completely around the bend. Crowley can't even see his fucking  _ face_. And that's what finally drives Crowley to action.

"Angel," he says. Aziraphale doesn't answer, so he tries again. "Angel." The only reaction is that Aziraphale wriggles his fingers a little deeper into Crowley's secondaries, which makes Crowley shudder. He shakes his head, tries to clear it enough to think straight. " _Aziraphale_."

Aziraphale sounds as though he's waking from sleep. "Mm. Crowley. Yes, my dear, what is it?"

Crowley realizes that Aziraphale has been just as distracted, just as gone, as he has. It takes his breath away for a moment.

It's difficult to speak clearly, particularly as Aziraphale is unrelenting with his careful little thrusts. "Ah—I just—it's been a while like this, I think. I mean, I want to—I—we could…oh bloody hell, Aziraphale," he finally spits out, "turn me over, I want to  _ see you_."

Aziraphale makes a low, pleased sound. "Yes," he says, "let's do that. I think I'd rather like to see your face as well. What an  _ excellent _ idea, Crowley."

Crowley doesn't even have the wherewithal to be embarrassed about the praise, he's so strung-out right now. He cries out when Aziraphale withdraws his cock. Aziraphale is slow and gentle about it, but Crowley feels empty, bereft.

"Turn over, darling," Aziraphale urges. Crowley doesn't need to be asked twice. With one long, serpentine motion, he flips himself over so that now he's face-up beneath Aziraphale, inside the brackets of Aziraphale's arms. His wings splay out beneath him, hanging off the edges of the bed on either side. His cock brushes against Aziraphale's belly where he's braced over him.

Aziraphale's face is slightly pink from exertion. His curls are backlit by lamplight, giving the impression of a halo floating behind his head, and his eyes are dark and hungry. Crowley feels that he could spend the rest of eternity here, in this moment, staring up at his gorgeous angel.

"Just  _ look  _ at you," Aziraphale says under his breath, wetting his lips with his tongue. He pushes Crowley's legs apart to fit his own between them, then slides one hand into Crowley's hair, lightly tugging at it. Crowley arches his back, pressing himself into Aziraphale's warm, soft body, but before he's even had time to think about the fact that Aziraphale's hand pulling his hair is  _ definitely  _ awakening something in him, and  _ definitely _ something he wants to explore at some length, Aziraphale slides his other hand into Crowley's right-hand secondaries. Crowley opens his mouth in a silent cry, and Aziraphale takes his mouth in a possessive, searching kiss.

Crowley flings his arms around Aziraphale's neck, twists and arches so he can rub his cock against Aziraphale's belly. Aziraphale pulls out of the kiss for a moment to whisper, "Wicked demon," into Crowley's ear, then slides his tongue back into Crowley's mouth. But he hasn't told Crowley to stop, so Crowley keeps doing it. He can't help it; Aziraphale feels so  _ good_, so warm and soft and pink and—

"Not yet," Aziraphale is saying. He pushes himself up into a kneeling position, away from Crowley's cock, making Crowley feel a little as though he's had a bucket of cold water thrown on him.

"Angel," he pleads.

Aziraphale pets his chest. "You're being very patient," he says. "But I, er—I think I rather want to see." He flushes slightly pink.

Crowley lifts an eyebrow. "Angel, I hate to point out the obvious," he says, "but there's not much more of me  _ to _ see right now." He glances down at his very naked body, arching his back artfully just to make the point. (Crowley  _ is _ very good at tempting, and some habits are hard to shake.)

"Yes," Aziraphale says, tracing a finger in a looping figure eight from Crowley's collarbone down his ribcage and back. "But I believe we'd discussed earlier about you, er. Coming. On me."

Crowley suddenly feels like his skin is too tight. His cock lets out another little pulse of pre-come without permission. "I, ah," he says, "thought I did."

Aziraphale's cheeks turn a deeper shade of pink, but his eyes darken with lust. "That was mostly my mouth," Aziraphale says. "Which was  _ quite _ delightful, but now I think I'd like it where I can see it."

"Oh," Crowley says dumbly, which is the only translation his mouth seems able to make of the shrieking cacophony of  _ oh fuck, fuck yes, yes, oh fuck yes  _ happening in his mind.

"Come here," Aziraphale demands, and he quickly and expertly flips them over so that Aziraphale is flat on his back with Crowley on his knees straddling him. Aziraphale shifts them so that his cock, thick and sturdy, is positioned just at Crowley's entrance.

"You'll take me this way, won't you, Crowley?" Aziraphale says, his blond lashes catching the light.

"Fuck yessssss," Crowley hisses, half out of his mind with arousal. He lowers himself onto Aziraphale, greedily watching the angel's blissed-out expression as his cock slides back into Crowley's passage. He's stretched nicely from before, and so he has no trouble taking Aziraphale's entire length, sliding down it until he's practically sitting in Aziraphale's lap, bracing his hands on Aziraphale's chest.

Aziraphale makes an ecstatic little cry. "Oh," he pants, "you're so good, Crowley. You're so  _ very _ good at this. I think...I think perhaps your body was made to fit mine. I can think of—oohh—no other explanation for how— how very— very  _ good _ this is. Move now, darling."

"Yeah," Crowley gasps. "All right." He flexes his hips and thighs and rides Aziraphale's cock, feeling the thick drag of it, bottoming out with each stroke,  _ finally _ able to take Aziraphale just as deep and hard as he likes.

"You are  _ perfect_," Aziraphale sighs, and then he reaches for Crowley's wings again.

Crowley doesn't mind about his wings anymore. They're still sensitive, especially after being handled so much already tonight, but Aziraphale likes them, so Aziraphale can play with them as much as he wants.

As Aziraphale's fingers slip into the soft canopy of Crowley's wings, Crowley leans forward a little, which lets Aziraphale sink his hands that much deeper into his feathers and also, importantly, allows Crowley to rub his cock against Aziraphale's soft, rounded belly. Every downstroke means that Aziraphale's cock is buried deep inside his arse and that his own cock slides against Aziraphale. It's gorgeously obscene, his stiff, reddish-purple cock sliding back and forth through the fluid he's smearing all over Aziraphale's peaches-and-cream skin.

"I—" he says, but his throat closes up around the rest of the words.

"Yes, Crowley?" Aziraphale's eyes glitter hungrily. He wriggles his fingers deeper into Crowley's feathers. "Are you close?"

Crowley, beyond speech, jerks his head in a nod, his cock thrusting back and forth over Aziraphale's belly in a driving, frantic rhythm. Aziraphale grips Crowley's hips, dragging him down onto his cock over and over again.

"I'm close as well," Aziraphale gasps. "Crowley, on me, I want to see it on me. Oh, Crowley, oh,  _ all of the archangels,  _ oh  _ fuck—"  _

Aziraphale, fussy Aziraphale,  _ his _ Aziraphale, is coming inside him, is begging him to come all over his belly, and his pleasure winds together and through Aziraphale's pleasure, twining together like two vines, becoming one. Crowley sees stars, actual stars, stars he built and named. For a tilting, disorienting moment, Crowley thinks he holds the entire universe inside himself.

And then Aziraphale rakes all of his fingers down through Crowley's wings, and Crowley's hips snap forward as he pulses ribbons of come onto Aziraphale's chest and belly. Crowley shouts Aziraphale's name in the words of his first, true language, and he falls into the dark and glittering sky.

And this time,  _ this time_, there's someone there to catch him.


	4. Chapter 4

Aziraphale miracles himself a cup of cocoa and quite decadently sips at it in bed. He normally makes the cocoa himself, because the miracled sort always tastes slightly of celestial matter, which doesn't go with marshmallows  _ at all_. But normally he doesn't have a warm, pliant demon draped half over him asleep in his bed.

He smiles. Crowley's breath is warm and regular against his hip. One arm is flung over Aziraphale's lap and his legs are tangled together with Aziraphale's.

He ruffles Crowley's hair with his free hand and leaves it there to rest possessively on his head. He spent so very many years not touching Crowley at all; now that he has, he's rather reluctant to stop.

"Mmnh," Crowley snuffles against him. His wings are draped behind him, half-folded and limp. They take up half the bed. Aziraphale supposes he could miracle the bed larger, but he rather likes having Crowley over on his side anyway.

"Oh, Crowley," Aziraphale says, pleased to see the demon stirring to life. "Cocoa?"

Crowley levers himself semi-upright in bed, blinking sleepily. He looks at Aziraphale, who is shirtless but wearing a pair of tartan flannel pajama pants, and his eyes widen. "We—" he starts.

"Yes," Aziraphale says.

Crowley looks a bit poleaxed. Aziraphale takes a demure sip of cocoa and says, "I thought we might again later, as well. If you're up to it, of course."

He gives Crowley a little smile.

Crowley's expression is one of helpless adoration, and Aziraphale is certainly not immune to that sort of thing, especially not from his demon. He presses a kiss into the top of Crowley's head.

" _Best _ demon," Aziraphale says fondly. He can see that Crowley is marshalling a retort to this, so as a distraction he quickly adds, "Your wings are still out, my dear." He rests a hand on Crowley's back just inside his shoulder blade, enough to give warmth to his feathers without actually touching them. He suspects Crowley will need a little time before he's ready to have his feathers touched again.

Crowley rolls his shoulders as though to confirm that his wings are really present. "Think I'll leave them out for a bit," he says, watching Aziraphale carefully. "Don't wanna move them too much yet."

Aziraphale kisses him again. "I was rather hoping you'd say that," he says. "Here, it's not fair for you to be the only one," and with a little shake of his shoulders, his gleaming, white wings emerge out of the celestial plane and into the bedroom. He'd put them away while he was reading, but there's really no reason not to bring them out now, and Crowley  _ does _ seem to enjoy them.

He extends a wing and wraps it around Crowley, enfolding him in it. Crowley shudders a little and then relaxes into it, snuggling himself up against Aziraphale's shoulder.

"Been a long time since I felt your wings, angel," Crowley murmurs into Aziraphale's neck. Aziraphale smiles, pleased.

"Crowley, love?" Aziraphale asks. Crowley starts a little against him.

"Not used to that yet," Crowley mutters, almost but not quite too soft for Aziraphale to hear.

"Lovely demon,” Aziraphale murmurs, “who pleases me so deeply, who I will love to the end of eternity?"

Crowley does a full-body shiver and presses his face into Aziraphale's neck. He doesn't say anything; Aziraphale supposes he doesn't need to. Aziraphale ruffles his hair gently again. "Crowley, there was something you suggested earlier."

Crowley lifts his head only enough to be able to speak, his lips still brushing against Aziraphale's collarbone.

"Angel," he says, "It's not that I'm not enthusiastic—I swear it's not—it's just I'm going to need a... a little bit before..."

Aziraphale laughs. "Goodness me," he says. "No, no, not that. Well, not  _yet_ , anyway. But you'd suggested a bit of telly, as I recall?"

Crowley lifts his head entirely from Aziraphale's shoulder and blinks. "You want to go downstairs?" he says.

"Oh, no need for that. You could do with a bit of rest. I thought—" Aziraphale snaps his fingers and a flatscreen television materializes on the wall in front of them. Another snap, and Channel 4 switches on, in the middle of the intro to The Great British Bake-Off.

Crowley sighs against him in what sounds like deep content. "S'nice, angel," he says. "S'a good idea." He rests his head against Aziraphale again, and they both listen to the theme music play. But before the opening credits are even over, Crowley sits bolt upright, startling Aziraphale and sending the blankets into disarray.

"Frivolous miracle!" Crowley says, in the same tone of voice that he might have said,  _ look out for that bus! _

Aziraphale lifts an eyebrow. "I hardly think materializing a television—"

"No," Crowley says, shaking his head frantically. "Earlier, you—you—"

Aziraphale's eyebrow lifts even higher.

"You...  _ lubricated _ me," Crowley hisses out. " _Multiple times. _ Isn't Upstairs going to notice? That you oiled up a demon's arse?"

Aziraphale relaxes. "Oh, that." He smiles serenely. "I rather hope they do. I hope Gabriel chokes on it."

Crowley makes a noise in the back of his throat, shocked delight written in every line on his face. "Angel—" he says. "You—"

Aziraphale enfolds him back into his wing. "Come, darling," he says. "Let's watch." And then, hopefully, he says, "I wouldn't say no to some treats?"

Crowley relaxes into Aziraphale's side, sighing with pleasure. "Anything you like, angel," he says, and snaps his fingers.

And so the rest of eternity starts—with a bit of telly, a tray of macarons, and an angel and a demon wrapped side by side in each other's wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://mswhich.tumblr.com/).
> 
> If you liked the story, I'd love to read your comment. <3


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